Commentary on ‘The arms of the chimeras’ by Béatrice Ithier

In this Commentary I will first of all summarise my understanding of the proposal set out by Béatrice Ithier concerning her concept of the ‘chimera’. The main part of my essay will focus on Ithier's claim that her concept of the chimera could be described as a ‘mental squiggle’ because it corresponds to Winnicott's work illustrated in his book ‘Therapeutic Consultations’ (1971). At the core of Ithier's chimera is the notion of a traumatic link between analyst and patient, which is the reason she enlists the work of Winnicott. I will argue, however, that Ithier's claim is based on a misperception of the theory that underpins Winnicott's therapeutic consultations because, different from Ithier's clinical examples of work with traumatised patients, Winnicott is careful to select cases who are from an ‘average expectable environment’ i.e. a good enough family. Moreover, Winnicott does not refer to any traumatic affinity with his patients, or to experiencing a quasi‐hallucinatory state of mind during the course of the consultations. These aspects are not incorporated into his theory. In contrast (to the concept Ithier attempts to advance), Winnicott's squiggle game constitutes an application of psychoanalysis intended as a diagnostic consultation. In that sense Winnicott's therapeutic consultations are comparable with the ordinary everyday work between analyst and analysand in a psychoanalytic treatment. My Commentary concludes with a question concerning the distinction between the ordinary countertransference in working with patients who are thinking symbolically in contrast to an extraordinary countertransference that I suggest is more likely to arise with patients who are traumatised and thus functioning at a borderline or psychotic level.     

The role of mental rotation in TetrisTM gameplay: An ACT-R computational cognitive model

The mental rotation ability is an essential spatial reasoning skill in human cognition and has proven to be an essential predictor of mathematical and STEM skills, critical and computational thinking. Despite its importance, little is known about when and how mental rotation processes are activated in games explicitly targeting spatial reasoning tasks. In particular, the relationship between spatial abilities and Tetris^TM has been analysed several times in the literature. However, these analyses have shown contrasting results between the effectiveness of Tetris-based training activities to improve mental rotation skills. In this work, we studied whether, and under what conditions, such ability is used in the Tetris^TM game by explicitly modelling mental rotation via an ACT-R based cognitive model controlling a virtual agent. The obtained results show meaningful insights into the activation of mental rotation during game dynamics. The study suggests the necessity to adapt game dynamics in order to force the activation of this process and, therefore, can be of inspiration to design learning activities based on Tetris^TM or re-design the game itself to improve its educational effectiveness.     

Concurrent and Longitudinal Relationships Between Development in Graphic,Language and Symbolic Play Domains from the Fourth to the Fifth Year

This research investigated the developing inter‐relationships between language, graphic symbolism and symbolic play both concurrently and longitudinally from the fourth to the fifth year of childhood. Sixty children (n = 60) aged between 3 and 4 years completed multiple assessments of language and assessments of graphic symbolism, symbolic play and non‐verbal intelligence. A year later, 31 children (n = 31) were re‐tested using the same assessments. The findings revealed that skills within each symbolic domain were inter‐related during the fourth year, appearing to develop in a domain‐general type fashion based upon a common underlying symbolic mechanism. However, between the fourth and the fifth years, only language had predictive validity, suggesting a shift towards the verbal mediation of symbolic play and graphic symbolism as language becomes progressively internalized (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The identity of Brexit: A cultural psychology analysis

In this paper, we propose a culturalist interpretation of the outcome of the Brexit referendum. This interpretation is grounded on the analysis of the U.K.'s cultural milieu, which is part of a more general study of the cultural milieus of several European countries. Specific to the United Kingdom, our analysis is based on a questionnaire carried out on a representative sample of U.K. respondents stratified by sociodemographic variables and geographic region (NUTS1). Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis—a combination of multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. Findings about the multicountry analysis show how cultural milieus are characterized by five basic, embodied, affect‐laden, generalized worldviews (defined as “Symbolic Universes”). Four out of five symbolic universes consist of a way of interpreting reality by a specific anchorage (i.e., the ethical norm, the institutional order, the emotional experience interpersonal bond, and the belongingness). One symbolic universe can be viewed as the anomic reaction to the failure of those anchorages. Focusing on Brexit, by means of a discriminant analysis, it is showed how the incidence of the symbolic universes (and of the underpinning basic dimensions of meaning within the 12 U.K. macroregions') enables to identify differentially the macroregions with high proportion of “leave” at the Brexit referendum against those with low proportion. More specifically, the high “leave” macroregion are characterized by higher relevance of cultural forms anchored on local identity/belongingness. Findings are discussed within the wider aims of the project and its implications for a cultural psychology informed policymaking.     

Religious cultures and gender cultures: tracing gender differences across religious cultures

This special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion focuses on varying empirical connections and theoretical relations between ‘religion’ and ‘gender’. The introduction to this special issue suggests a theoretical approach which is sensitive to culture by drawing on a phenomenological understanding of culture that is based on knowledge and meaning production and sense making. At first sight, this may not sound convincing because ‘culture’ is a category that is most notably used in combination with religion and gender in culturalist ways. In the migration societies of contemporary Europe, religion has become a metaphor for cultural difference and symbolic boundary-making. The core element of this approach is the conceptualisation of culture as a social web consisting of symbolic forms based on signs of meaning that shape social action, orientation, and experience in the world, including the religious sphere. This entails an understanding of religion as a distinct province of meaning that is structured by processes of social symbolisation just like any other sphere of life. This approach reveals that culturalist conceptions of both religion and gender have specific social meanings as meaningful signs in the symbolic order of secular modernity.     

Evaluative conditioning effects are modulated by the nature of contextual pairings

Across two studies participants completed a learning phase comprised of two types of trials: context pairing trials in which two (valenced or non-valenced) words were identical or opposite to one another and evaluative conditioning (EC) trials in which a CS was paired with a US. Based on the idea that EC occurs because CS-US pairings function as a symbolic cue about the relation between the CS and the US, we hypothesised that the nature of context pairings (identical or opposite) might moderate EC effects. Results indicate that identity-based context pairs led to typical assimilative explicit and implicit effects whereas opposition-based pairs led to attenuated effects. Implications and different accounts of our findings are discussed.     

强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制

2个眼动实验分别探讨强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制, 以便考察语言理解是命题表征的过程还是经验模拟的过程, 抑或是二者兼具。在实验中, 被试首先听句子(强语义语境：如“胳膊不是弯曲的”的备择选项为“伸直的胳膊”, 其中“弯曲−伸直”为具有反义关系的强语义连接关系; 弱语义语境：如加工“裙子不是蓝色的”的备择选项为“黑色的裙子”, “蓝色−黑色”为弱语义连接关系), 然后会看到4张同时呈现的图片, 被试的任务是按键选择与句子描述匹配的图片。结果发现, 在强语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(201~600 ms时窗)对描述事件否定状态的图片(弯曲的胳膊)与描述事件实际状态的图片(伸直的胳膊)的注视概率没有差别, 晚期(601 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片的注视概率更高; 弱语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(401~600 ms)仅对描述事件否定状态的图片(蓝裙子)注视概率更高, 晚期(801 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片(黑色裙子)注视概率更高; 并且, 都对描述事件否定状态的图片的注视概率低于随机水平。结果支持符号依存假设和抑制假设。     

Testing for selectivity in the dependence of random variables on external factors

Random variables A and B, whose joint distribution depends on factors (x,y), are selectively influenced by x and y, respectively, if A and B can be represented as functions of, respectively, (x,S_A,C) and (y,S_B,C), where S_A,S_B,C are stochastically independent and do not depend on (x,y). Selective influence implies selective dependence of marginal distributions on the respective factors: thus no parameter of A may depend on y. But parameters characterizing stochastic interdependence of A and B, such as their mixed moments, are generally functions of both x and y. We derive two simple necessary conditions for selective dependence of (A,B) on (x,y), which can be used to conduct a potential infinity of selectiveness tests. One condition is that, for any factor values x,x^′ and y,y^′,

s_xy≤s_xy^′+s_x^′y^′+s_x^′y,